Chapter 158
MARY LOU AND I TOOK the captain’s gig back to the pier. I had wanted to stay and try to talk to Paul, but Mary Lou made it quite clear that was not going to happen.
Apparently, when the valve busted, Paul panicked, and in his haste to get the injured out of the containment room, he threw every protocol he’d ever been taught out the window.
Now the whole field was contaminated, and the submarine was on lockdown while they tested every surface and tried to figure out what to do next.
After we’d disembarked and were walking in the direction of Mary Lou’s Caprice, I worked up the nerve to ask what she thought would happen to Paul.
“He’ll face some sort of disciplinary action,” she said. “For sure.”
I thought of Roberta Stearns, who wanted that tour in Hawaii so bad. “Is this going to affect Joe, too?”
“It’s going to affect everyone—all the way up the chain of command.”
I glanced at her. “Even Jim?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“I’m so sorry.”
She shrugged. “Jim’s weathered some pretty bad storms. But if he doesn’t survive this one, it won’t be the end of the world.”
I was surprised to hear her sound so glib, and I told her as much.
“We’ve been doing this a long time, and he’s had a good career. But I like to think we’re still young enough that we could start all over. Make a different kind of life.”
“Definitely,” I said, although I don’t know if I was old enough at the time to really believe it.